THE NURSE whose appearance in television reports from famine-hit Ethiopia in 1984 inspired Live Aid has revealed how she could not wait for reporter Michael Buerk and his crew to leave.

Dame Claire Bertschinger said things were so bad she had to select children to be fed who she thought had a chance of survival and had “a spark of life in their eyes”.

She said when Buerk and his crew arrived at her feeding centre and began filming their presence jarred.

“They said, ‘Right, let’s get some really sick children Claire, would you like to hold that one?’ And then he [Buerk] started asking me questions,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Island Discs.

Buerk asked her if having to choose which children would live “did anything to her”.

She told Kirsty Young: “Ridiculous, I mean what do you expect? It breaks my heart. I couldn’t get rid of them fast enough, I thought this is just ridiculous, I don’t want these people around me.” Buerk’s first report from Ethiopia made a huge impact and inspired Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to create Band Aid and later Live Aid.

Bertschinger, the daughter of Anglo-Swiss parents and brought up in Essex, said when a British plane of food arrived “I thought, ‘Wow, we’re saved’.”

They said, ‘Right, let’s get some really sick children Claire, would you like to hold that one?’ And then he [Buerk] started asking me questions

Dame Claire Bertschinger

Yet she was still unaware of the world’s massive fund-raising efforts and when she first heard Do They Know It’s Christmas? she got “the completely wrong end of the stick” and her response was: “We need more than a bloody band aid to feed this place.”

She said she returned to Ethiopia to make a programme with Buerk in 2003 with trepidation. “I was horrified because I felt responsible for those I was unable to help. I thought I’d be vilified.”

Now a lecturer at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine her record selection included Sir Michael Caine reading Rudyard Kipling’s poem If, but she did not pick the Band Aid anthem.

She replaced the Bible with Buddhist writings and chose a Swiss Army penknife as her luxury.